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Forget John Wall and Devan Downey — the Gators have their hands full with BYU’s Jimmer Fredette

Billy Donovan instructs his players at Wednesday's shootaround in Oklahoma City

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Gators certainly have experience facing the nation’s top guards – two games each this season against Kentucky’s John Wall, potentially the top pick in this summer’s NBA Draft, and South Carolina’s Devan Downey, the SEC’s leading scorer (22.5 points per game).

And yet to Billy Donovan, neither of those stars compare to BYU’s Jimmer Fredette, a 6-foot-2 white guy from upstate New York who was not rated by Rivals.com out of high school.

“Fredette is one of the best kept secrets in college basketball,” Donovan said Wednesday at the Ford Center as his team prepared for Thursday’s first-round matchup against BYU. “As a coach and a basketball fan and someone that loves to watch the game, to be able to watch him on film was really, really, great treat to watch. As much as I have great, great respect and admiration for Wall and Downey, those guys can’t get 50 in a college game like this guy can.”

Jimmer Fredette / Getty Images

Fredette hasn’t gone for 50 this year, but he has come close. He scored a school-record 49 in a victory over Arizona in December and 45 against TCU in the first-round of the Mountain West Conference.

Fredette is not even close to the same player he was when he faced Chandler Parsons in an AAU tournament four years ago.

“I remember him being a shooter, but (Penn State’s) Tailor Battle was The Man on that team,” Parsons said. “Obviously things have changed.”

Fredette is the 12th-leading scorer in the country, averaging 21.7 points per game, and helped the Cougars (29-5, 14-4 MWC) rank second in the nation in scoring offense (83 ppg) and scoring margin (17.8 points). The Cougars are also the best free throw shooting team in the nation (78.6 percent) and third in three-point shooting (41.9 percent).

“The biggest thing is the variety of shots that he has,” BYU coach Dave Rose said. “He can shoot off the dribble. He can shoot the runners off balance. He can get himself to the free throw line. He plays at a pace that is really hard to guard, and he has deep range, which makes him a lot quicker than he is.”

Donovan stressed that it will take a team effort to stop Fredette, but freshman guard Kenny Boynton will still have the majority of the responsibility. Boynton said his eyes opened wide when he saw Fredette’s highlight footage.

“I knew he was a good player, but in the ways he scores, I was like wow, cause he scores off 1-on-1 plays, no picks,” Boynton said. “I know I’m not going to lock him down completely, but I’m going to do the best I can.”